Today I read this article in which a woman chronicles her faith journey after her husband declared himself to be an atheist. After reading it I had two thoughts. The first was how grateful I am that my husband doesn't think that my lack of faith is a divorceable offense (neither did the article writer btw) and that I do not see his believing in a God as a reason for divorce either. My second thought was that if my husband did use some of these passive aggressive (in her words: Godly love) techniques, we would be heading for divorce too.

Sharing the gospel with words ceased to be effective, but each time God helped me show patience instead of frustration, my husband saw. Each time I read my Bible in the living room, he knew. And each time I wrote about God’s goodness, he read it. He saw me cling to God when it would have been easier to give up and join him in unbelief. This is not a testament to me but to what God can do through sinners likeme. Like you, too.

I can promise her that he was not seeing God every time she was being patient with him. He saw her. He saw this wonderful woman that he has spent five years with who was patient with him because she believes that a god would want this of her. Notice she isn't patient with him because she says she loves him or even respects him. It was because she loved God. I find that very interesting. What he did see was a woman who insisted that he know that she was a Christian, as if he didn't already. Perhaps she had always read her Bible in the living room or perhaps this was her way of stating, this is what I believe and I want you to see it. She did it through her blog, her articles, her Facbook posts. He saw her faith. There was probably no doubt about it. But she wanted to be sure that he understood that she was not going to be joining him.

And that bullshit sentence about how it would have been easier to give up and join him in his unbelief? Are you fucking kidding me? It took me years (and probably her husband too) to even begin to admit that there might be problems with the Bible. More to admit that I didn't believe it all. It was an agonizing decision to say I no longer believed in God. Telling my husband that I no longer believed was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. The fact that she thinks that such a decision was easy speaks volumes as to why their marriage couldn't work out.

What I see in this article is a woman so entrenched in the love of God, that she really didn't know how to extend that to a man who no longer believed in one. For one, love was conditional on his faith and her righteousness was of far more importance than trying to understand him, something that is obvious in this short article. I'm not saying they wouldn't have gotten divorced, because it takes two to tango and he may have said, I can't live with someone who is so committed to a god like this. I am saying that she didn't even try to understand.

And I am so grateful for a husband who may not agree, but does actually understand why I have doubts and doesn't feel the need to remind me that he is a Christian at every turn.